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Computershare announces new "Irish Save As You Earn" programme
We are pleased to announce that Computershare have entered into an agreement with AIB to act as a savings carrier for Irish approved Save As You Earn (SAYE) schemes.
The contract with AIB means our clients offering an Irish revenue-approved SAYE scheme are now eligible to use AIB as a savings carrier in conjunction with their scheme.
The agreement with AIB to act as savings carrier further cements our position as the natural choice for employers who need end‑to‑end solutions for employee share plan administration and employee services support and will help us provide the best possible support to participants in Ireland.
What is Irish Save As You Earn?
In a Save As You Earn (SAYE) plan, also known as ‘Sharesave’, employees save money from their net pay in order to buy shares in their employing company (or a company that controls their employer).
Employees join the plan during an invitation period (which is typically opened annually) and choose the amount they wish to save. When the invitation period closes participants are granted share options which can be exercised at the end of the plan.
The option price is often an average of the closing share price over a three to five day period before the invitation date. It can then be discounted by up to 25%. Companies have the flexibility to amend this in their plan rules. The number of options granted to each participant is calculated using the option price and the participant’s total savings.
When an SAYE matures, participants can either take their cash savings back in full, or exercise some or all of their options.
A simple example for a three year Irish SAYE
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Why Computershare for SAYE?
We’ll make SAYE easy for you – our experts support over 700 contributory plans globally
Drive valuable employee engagement – tailor one of our off-the-shelf campaigns to give your launch instant impact
Enrolling couldn’t be easier – employees sign up in seconds online
All administration is online, creating a seamless experience for you and your employees
Making share dealing simple – exercise options and sell shares online in one easy transaction
A simple plan with some flexibility in design
- Engage employees by giving them the chance to profit if the company performs well.
- No share price risk: employees don’t own shares (unless they choose to hold shares after maturity) so if the share price doesn’t rise over the savings period they simply take their savings back.
- Employees can take their savings out of the scheme at any time – if they do so their options will lapse.
- Employees can pause contributions without their options lapsing – currently for up to six months.
- Companies can offer three or five year plans – or both.
- Companies can set the minimum monthly savings limit between €12 and the maximum monthly limit up to €500.
- Employees can join SAYE at each invitation, but cannot save more than the maximum monthly limit across all plans.
- Companies can set a qualifying period of employment of up to three years’ service – although most don’t impose a service condition
- Companies can set a maximum number of options available, and can scale back grants if the plan is oversubscribed
Innovative solutions for you and your organisation
For more than 35 years, we’ve managed employee equity plans across all major markets and global indices. With over 1,000 experts in 19 locations around the world, our expertise spans all types of plans. Whatever your needs – global, country-specific, broad-based, performance or executive – we have a solution for you.
We are committed to investing in the intuitive technology that makes it easy for your entire workforce to engage with their holdings and simplifies employee equity plan management for those in your organisation who oversee it.
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